Month: June 2007

Photography

Storms

Shelly

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We’ve had a few nice storms recently. I’ve been at work during the daytime ones, and only one had interesting cloud contrast.

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A few months back, bits of stone started falling from the south side of the main library, so a company was brought in to repair the facade. They’ve worked their way around to the northwest corner of the building, which is sort of entertaining, as we are a captive audience. I’m sure I’ll feel differently about it when they are working right outside our windows, but for now, it’s kind of cool to watch them haul hunks of limestone up and down the building.

(It’s 7:30am on a Saturday, and guess whose television is blaring away already? I was really looking forward to sleeping in this morning, but alas, it was not to be.)

Letters to Esther

New Letters to Esther

Shelly

January 8, 1921 from Clark

January 9, 1921 from Mrs. Forest Shoemaker

January 12, 1921 Mrs. Whitsel

January 13, 1921 from Clark

January 30, 1921 from Mamma

It’s been almost a year since I worked on Esther’s letters. I didn’t realize it had been quite that long until this morning, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t touched them since I moved last fall. Yikes!

The newest letters are from January 1921. There is a scarlet fever epidemic in Geneva, so Esther’s family can’t write to her or her brother Clark, who is attending Purdue University. Family friends have taken to writing to Esther and Clark. Clark must be feeling lonesome, because he not only writes to Mamma to tell her to encourage Esther to write to him, but he chastises her for neglecting him.

Uncategorized

Welcome to My Brain

Shelly

I’ve been working on a bunch of books from Ethiopia. As I was tooling around Classification Web, looking for an appropriate subject and call number for one of them, I had a weird disconnect. I’d settled on Occupations–Ethiopia, which was fine. Only, when I went to find a call number to go with my nice, shiny, new subject, my brain suddenly decided that occupations–something that two seconds before it had understood perfectly well to mean jobs–were something of the military invasion variety. For a moment, I was confused to find myself in the HBs (economic theory and demography). That’s not the funny part, though. When I went back to the book, I had a “What the hell does this have to do with military invasions?!” moment.

Need more sleep and caffeine!

Also, this is Milton’s fault, oh yes, it is.

Uncategorized

Veggies

Shelly

A coworker has a ginormous garden that’s producing more than her family can eat, so she’s been bringing sacks of veggies to work with her: zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and a variety of peppers. These are not the baseball bat sized zucchini that folks try to foist off on friends, relations, and innocent bystanders, either. They are tiny, baby veggies, with delicate skins and tender flesh. They are far superior to anything I’ve seen in the grocery store, and are organic, too.

She said that she’ll have tomatoes soon. I cannot wait. Grocery store tomatoes are ghastly imitations of the real thing. I remember real tomatoes, and I have high hopes that these will live up to my expectations.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Flickr

Shelly

My Flickr Pro account expired today, so everything has reverted to freebie account status. I’m seriously tempted to ditch Flickr completely, because they are tied to the heinous Yahoo-SBC-AT&T megacorporateclusterfuck. Every interaction I’ve had with AT&T has been worse than the last, so I’m really not interested in giving another penny to them or to any company they have assimilated.

On the other hand, Flickr is a great networking opportunity. On the other-other hand, I’m not using it to its advantage, so why bother? And, it’s not like I need the web space, because my host provides a metric butt load of it.

(Guess what? It’s 9:59 pm and it sounds like Mr. Upstairs is finally getting out of bed. This means he should be hitting the treadmill by about 2am. The treadmill is, I may or may not have previously mentioned, directly above my bed. I have to get up at 4am. That’s not gonna happen if he wakes me up again. I know that, because every day this week I’ve slept through my alarm and been about 30 minutes late for work. I expect I’ll be late tomorrow, too. I ought to send him a bill for missed work hours.)

Crankypantsing

Ramblings

Shelly

Somehow, the last two weeks have managed to slip by without me noticing them. I missed the solstice. I will, however, attest to the fact that summer has well and truly arrived in southern Indiana. It is right some Jesus hot outside today, and muggy, too. O gross. This is, however, the first time ever that I have had central AC, so I’m not going to complain too much about the unholy weather. It is made all the sweeter by the fact that I have to do zero mowing. I’m sure y’all are pleased about that, too, as I recall spending a good portion of last summer (and the one before, too, probably) endlessly whinging about the endless goddamn mowing.

Speaking of central AC, one thing I have noticed is that I don’t need (or even like) the temperature to be very cool. With a window unit, the air remained pretty humid, so it never felt cool, no matter how long the AC ran. What I notice now is that the air is dry in my apartment, not that it is particularly cool. I do not have gills, so dry is good, and it is cool enough to be comfortable.

Finger update: All is well! The scab, such as it was (mostly, it wasn’t), is long gone, and in its place is a weird, Grand Canyon sort of scar. The edges of the scar are peeling at each layer, which is kind of funky. I was worried for a few days, because the skin around the cut hardened and I lost sensation in that area. The nerves must be fine, though, because the feeling has returned to normal.

I may actually have the time, the ability, and the inclination to do some arting this weekend. Finally!

Crankypantsing, Photography

Ow!

Shelly

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I still can’t type worth a damn. Mousing is no picnic, either. And to add insult to injury, I slammed my right (!) hand in a filing cabinet at work this afternoon, so now I’m sporting a lovely red knot on the back of my middle finger.

Somehow, my left hand and arm have managed to remain unscathed. Praise be!

Photography

Mr. Chipmunk

Shelly

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Mr. Chipmunk

Isn’t he cute? I love his itty bitty ears and his bright beady eyes. He usually comes out of his hidey-hole in the early morning, and spends a few minutes sitting and scoping out his domain. There are a lot of birds and other predators around, so being cautious is a good idea. He picked a great spot for his den, though. He gets a little bit of protection from the balconies overhead, because the larger raptors aren’t likely to come that close to the buildings.

I also saw a yearling deer this morning, moseying along just off my patio. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of him, though.

Crankypantsing, Photography

I’m Not Dead Yet!

Shelly

I got so disgusted with the DSL cutting out on me that I haven’t bothered to even try getting online lately. Mr. Cable Guy was here this ayem, though, so I’m all hooked up with broadbandy goodness. It is beautiful.

In order to get ready for cable internet service, though, I had to pretty much rearrange my entire apartment. The bedroom had to be flip-flopped with the studio, and the living room furniture had to be rotated 180 degrees. Aieee! And, of course, being the master procrastinator that I am, I didn’t start until yesterday. It wouldn’t have been so bad, even then, but when I was about half-way done, I slit the index finger on my right hand open. It was deep enough to need stitches and was bleeding like nothing I’d ever seen before, but since Prompt Care wasn’t open, I just bandaged it up tightly and finished moving crap. Lemme tell ya’, moving a full-size mattress and box springs one-handed is not completely impossible, but it is No Picnic.

The good news is that the cut is deep enough that it doesn’t hurt. I’m whiny enough without adding “Waaah, it hurts!” to the litany of stuff to complain about. The bad news is that it is a pain in the arse to type. Work should be lots of fun this week!

Anyway, rearranging the living room meant moving CDs, which was sort of comical, given the injured hand problem. I finally got everything emptied out of the shelves, when I recalled being cranky a few days ago because I didn’t have anything to listen to. Um, clearly, that was not true. What I meant was that I wanted something new to listen to.

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And there are a couple hundred more out in the car. I remember once, when I was about 12-13, getting a lecture from my step-father about how it was unreasonable to spend all my money on records when I already had plenty to listen to. Lord knows, I can listen to the same thing over and over and over again, until everyone else’s ears start to bleed, but I do finally get bored and want new aural stimulation. More importantly, the arting is directly tied to the requirement for new aural stimulation. No new music eventually turns into no new art.

Anyway! The new cable modem is installed, and it is working beautifully. The cable phone connection is also clearer, which is nice. What is not nice is that AT&T are socking me with a $99 early termination fee, even though I terminated because their service was sucky. AND! Get this! When I called last week to get help with the flaky DSL, the tech guy told me to restart my computer. Gee, I would have never thought of that! And then he started hitting on me!!! Not cool at all. And the woman I talked to this morning couldn’t figure out why I didn’t just keep calling tech support every time the DSL died. Well, let’s see, perhaps it’s because the manchildren you have manning your tech support lines are misogynist pigs? Worse, they are unhelpful misogynist pigs. Also, who wants to struggle with their horrid voice response system every 20 minutes? Life is too short for that bullshit.